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PS3 Firmware 2.30 Provides HD-DTS Audio

Firmware update 2.30 for the PlayStation 3 will be arriving as soon as Sony is done upgrading the PlayStation Store, which should be next week some time. The unofficial date is April 15 - as supplied by SCEJ, but nothing official from SCEE or SCEA - and according to GameSpot, update 2.30 brings along something special for Blu-Ray movies: DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Sony America has confirmed the two new features, and if you weren't aware, DTS stands for Digital Theater System; it's a multichannel, digital surround-sound format, while the Master Audio is a "lossless codec that delivers sound to movie fans at 24.5 megabits per second." Not surprisingly, that's a whole lot faster than standard DVD sound. This new option will be just that, an option- DTS-HD High Resolution audio can be enabled or disabled depending on your home theater setup. If you can use it, though, it will "stream explosions, speech, and everything else at a constant bit rate of 6.0 Mbps." Now that Blu-Ray has officially won the format war, it only makes sense to enhance the experience, yes?

Over 100 Blu-Ray movies already support these new features, and we'll let you know when we have an exact date for firmware update 2.30. When we get it, that means we'll also have the completion date for the Store upgrade, which very well could be April 15. In fact, we're counting on it. Stay tuned!

fyi, viruses are triggered via executable files (or sometimes through ActiveX controls), which are designed to function on the target operating system. Unless the program was specifically designed to be launched by the PS3, it wouldn't even get close enough to look at it the wrong way. It's not to say the PS3 browser might not have a doorway that could be attacked, but even then, I find the odds of such a virus to be around .01%. Overall, safer than a PC if you ask me.